Last year I wrote about the importance of waiting for the right photograph, waiting for the stars to align in front of my camera and trusting that if I just sat with a moment and held my breath, something incredible could, and often would, unfold.

This year I feel like I took that a step further. Aside from just waiting, I gave myself permission to trust that I am enough, that my vision is enough, that the way I see things on a wedding day is enough. I started to slowly rid my work of gimmicks I had relied on in the past. I carried my tilt shift lens less often. I set up my off camera flash less often. I leaned into my intuition more heavily.  I gave my couples more breathing room, not in the physical sense, I still like to get right in there with my lens, but I feel like this year, especially, I worked hard to foster a space where, when a person stepped in front of my camera, they felt like they could be themselves. I wanted people to feel like they could let their vulnerability and their emotions and their love fill the room while also filling the frame.

I wouldn’t call it “back to basics”.  The truth is, as young photographers we often neglect the basics. We get so enamored by the power of our camera and fall so deeply in love with the ways that we can use it to change the way we see the world, we sometimes forget that it’s most powerful trait is that it can tell the truth when we allow it to.  A camera can tell an uplifting truth, a devastating truth, a simple truth, a complicated truth, a serious truth, a hilarious truth, a beautiful eternal and fleeting truth.  But of course, it’s not really the camera that’s doing all the truth telling. It’s the eyes and the hands and the heart on the other side of the viewfinder. 

Here is a collection of images I took in 2018. Here are some truths that I told.